Write Anyway

Because it’s the weekend and because I haven’t had such a good laugh in a long time.

Have a great weekend.

Hello and happy Thursday Thirteen everyone!

This week’s Thursday Thirteen prompts are going to continue on with prompts, questions, first lines, and other inspiration to help you get writing.

If there is another prompt you think would be helpful, be sure to let me know in the comments or by using the ‘contact me’ button under the site description.

1. “You know you love her. Now go and get her.” (Yep, from Hey Jude.)
2. “Ask and thou shalt receive.”
3. “It’s up to you to make the change. No one else can do it but you.”
4. “It was meant to be.”
5. “I can see you’ve made your mind up. What am I supposed to do now?”
6. “Stop! What you’re doing is going to kill him!”
7. “I found the strangest thing in my pocket this morning, and I don’t remember putting it in there.”
8. “I can’t tell you what I might do.”
9. “You’re a fool, no doubts about it.”
10. “I think we might die tonight.
11. “All I want is this. Nothing more. Nothing less.”
12. “Duck!”
13. “I love you, but we only have thirteen hours to save the earth.” (If you can tell me one of the two places where that’s from, I’ll give you a cookie.)

Check out my other Thursday Thirteens on The Book Stacks and Fiction Scribe

Hello once again everyone!

Welcome to another mid-week random word bank. I rather like random word banks. There is a challenge in them that not only gets your mind working, but you can also end up with a scene that you didn’t know you had it in you to write.

I hope you find these word banks useful. If there is a type of prompt you would prefer to see, please let me know.

Remember, with all the words, you can use any form, any tense of the word. Eg. Laugh can be laugh, laughter, laughs, laughed.

For the first word bank, I don’t want you to write a short story or anything actually. What I want you to do is word association. For every word there, I want you to write the word and then write the first word that comes to your mind after.

For the second word bank, I do want you to write a short story (or something longer if you like) that incorporates this week’s theme. This round goes as usual; just include all of the words in the bank.

For the third word bank, it is something different yet again. I would like you to try your hand at writing a poem incorporating the words provided.

Enjoy!

First Word Bank
Orange
Undo
Hard
Lullaby
Foreign
Cruel
Bird
Natural
Hair
Door

Second Word Bank
Cry
Picture
Lost
Touch
Run
Hide
Out
Pretend
Kind
Shelter

Third Word Bank
Eyes
Break
Shirt
Letter
Pillow
Bring
Unsure
Hold
Rush
Pants

This week we are talking about family and everything that comes with it.

I thought for a moment, when considering this prompt theme, that perhaps I wasn’t the best person to talk about families. I don’t have the best relationship with my family or extended family so I felt like maybe I was playing a fraud if I wanted to talk about it.

Thinking more, though, I realized that it’s probably good I’m talking about families because of that very fact. We don’t always love our parents. We don’t always get along with our siblings. Sometimes we have to sever ties if we want to be healthy, functioning people.

I am truly happy for people who have functional families they are happy to be a part of. We all joke about having a dysfunctional family, but too many of us have been left scarred by true dysfunction.

I don’t mean this to depress you or to throw a negative veil on family. I think family is a wonderful and even sacred thing. If anything, I hope my negative experiences with family will inspire you to fully appreciate what you have (if you have a good thing with your family).

When you sit down to write, remember how to help yourself to focus. Take some deep breaths – close your eyes if you need to – and try to clear your mind. Focus on the sound of your breath coming into your lungs and then leaving them. Focus on the world family and what it means to you.

Hello and happy Musical Monday everyone!

First off, I would just like to apologize once more for my rather sporadic posting of late. Thankfully, things in my life have been calming down and I’m getting caught up with everything. Once again, I am back at it here presenting you with another week of prompts!

As always, you are welcome to suggest new and different prompts for me to put up here. I’m always on the lookout for better inspiration for you.

Today we are starting off with a fresh new theme: Family!

Family means many things to many people. For some, it’s something negative that they would rather forget. For others, they are part of a true clan they are more than proud to take part in. Others yet feel like they haven’t ever had a true family.

Today I’m presenting you with a few music videos that talk about family in all their forms. I hope you enjoy them and have a wonderful Monday!

We Are Family – Sister Sledge

You had to know I was going to put up this video, right? I mean, you say song about family and you think about…

Family Portrait – Pink

This is one of those not so great pictures of what a family can be. This is the second song I thought of when I was thinking about family. It’s not my pick for this week, but it certainly has a good beat and a haunting message.

Ode to My Family – The Cranberries

This is my new find for this week. It’s a very interesting song…

Dear Readers,

Recently my blog posts haven’t been coming up at all regularly. Sometimes there have been no posts for a length of time and then BAM a lot of posts, and other times it has been at least a little steady. I want to apologize to you all for not at least warning you that my life has been a bit wonky lately.

A few weeks back, I got sick enough to take me away from the computer some days. While I tried to stay caught up, it wasn’t easy.

Beyond that, a job opportunity recently came up. My husband and I discussed it and, while it was completely my decision to go for it, we could definitely use the money. I am paying bills just fine with my freelancing, but I’ll be paying them for the next ten years if something doesn’t change.

So I had to put together a resume and then go for the job interview after the week or so of being sick and along with road trips and volunteering.

Even with all this, I do know you all understand that life gets in the way of blogging sometimes (as it should). Despite that, I still wanted to apologize for things. As you can see, I have been a bit busy.

Thank you to everyone who has been commenting and participating in the contest going here until June 5th. Remember, we have to reach 100 comments before the 5th so someone can win the lovely Aussie prize pack I have on offer.

Thank you also to everyone who stops by, contest or not, and chimes in. It’s always nice to know I have readers out there who care enough about what I am saying to say something back.

Hugs and appreciation to you all. I hope each and every one of you has a wonderful weekend.

Wishes! Talk about something you can write about. Everyone has secret desires, be them right or wrong, greedy or not. Wishes can be horrible things that haunt us and wonderful things that keep us working hard for our dream.

What wonderful writing fodder!

For your reading pleasure (and amusement) here are…

1. When I was younger, I wished my older brothers would spend more time with me…
2. …and let me play with their toys when I wanted…
3. …and let me play their Nintendo so I didn’t always have to sneak in to do it.
4. Also when I was younger, a lot of the time I wished to just be left alone to do my own thing. This wish only intensified when I started writing stories.
5. I wished (and still wish now) for more money. I absolutely love giving people presents, but it’s often put off because I don’t have enough money for stuff/shipping. Then it was because allowance was an on/off sort of thing. Now I have medical bills and student loans. Ah, to be an adult.
6. I wished to be skinny at about age ten. I’ve been overweight since before then, but it was when I was ten that I saw a picture of myself and realized how heavy I was. (Thanks a lot, PCOS.)
7. I have always, always wanted (even to this day) blue hair. Not highlighter blue, but dark blue that’s blue enough to make it obvious I have blue hair. (Someday…)
8. I also want to get my nose pierced…
9. …and to get my third tattoo. (I feel like such a rebel. Hah!)
10. In school, I wished for nothing more than this boy to ask me to be his girlfriend. And he did. Then he broke up with me the next day. The good news is I didn’t care because I’d really been in love with being in love.
11. Also in school, I fell hard for a guy two years older than me. I wished so much for us to be together. It never happened, though we both liked each other. I think he was afraid of commitment.
12. These days, my wishes revolve around my health. I wish for my ovarian cysts to magically disappear along with my other symptoms of PCOS.
13. I also wish for my husband and I to be happy and healthy for as long as we can be. I know that sounds a bit cheesy, but I honestly do.

Hello once again everyone!

Welcome to another mid-week random word bank. I rather like random word banks. There is a challenge in them that not only gets your mind working, but you can also end up with a scene that you didn’t know you had it in you to write.

I hope you find these word banks useful. If there is a type of prompt you would prefer to see, please let me know.

Remember, with all the words, you can use any form, any tense of the word. Eg. Laugh can be laugh, laughter, laughs, laughed.

For the first word bank, I don’t want you to write a short story or anything actually. What I want you to do is word association. For every word there, I want you to write the word and then write the first word that comes to your mind after.

For the second word bank, I do want you to write a short story (or something longer if you like) that incorporates this week’s theme. This round goes as usual; just include all of the words in the bank.

For the third word bank, it is something different yet again. I would like you to try your hand at writing a poem incorporating the words provided.

Enjoy!

First Word Bank
Crest
Cascade
Pink
Heat
Drink
Love
Week
Stack
If
Day

Second Word Bank
Slim
Slip
Crisp
Again
Rather
Assess
Not
Tell
Hymn
Time

Third Word Bank
Here
Travel
Held
Revolution
Red
Fight
Cross
Hello
Once
Another

Does anyone else remember that song? I certainly do. I even remember the little scene they had to go along with it…

It was in one of the Julia Roberts movies where she is in love with a man about to get married… Funny movie…

Anyway.

What do you wish for? Do you want the bigger house? More money? A guarantee that your children will be safe and sound after you’re gone? Do you miss someone and wish they would/could contact you? Are you wishing for the person you are going to marry to come into your life?

Or do you wish everyone would stop pestering you about getting married?

If you’re not currently wishing hard and often for anything in particular, what have you wished for in the past. What has meant so much to you in your life you wished it would come true?

Write about your wishes - even if you need to write in your diary/journal because they are secret wishes, explore your full imagination. If you wish for purple sunflowers and a pink sky, then so be it! Don’t let the prospect of possible judgments stop you from wishing for anything and everything your heart desires.

After all, what’s the saying again? Dream big?

To help you write and focus, remember to take some deep breaths and concentrate on the topic before you start writing. Focus on the word ‘wish’ or try to focus on your breathing so you can clear your mind.

Remember, have some fun!

And a little bit of a story for me to share with you.

Today I’d like you to write about a wish you’ve made that came true. I know I don’t often share my responses to these prompts, so here you go…

Inspired by “One Day I’ll Fly Away” from Moulin Rouge (below)

All my life, I wanted to fly away. Leave everything and become my own woman in a place I had never been. I’d set out to run away several times, but I’d always get a short distance away and realize a child could in no way be safe in this world without any protection.

Not to mention I had no money.

I didn’t find anything particularly bad about my family then because I didn’t know anything better, but I knew I had this urge in me to leave. The strongest urge I had ever known then.

I finally got my chance to fly away - as much as I could - in my second year of college. I moved four hours away from the life I knew, and it was glorious. I met many new friends, including three people I grew very close to. One person was troubled, though, by the past. His accounts of his past helped him as a way of therapy, but unfortunately made me start having flashbacks.

Flashbacks to bad, bad things in my childhood.

Another one of those friends turned into my boyfriend not long after we’d met; the connection was an instant one. He helped me through the flashbacks. He also helped me to realize the things I considered normal in my family life weren’t normal. I started asking around, as subtly as I could, and found he was completely right.

I was afraid to go home, but I knew that someday - hopefully someday soon, I could leave and join my boyfriend where he lived.

It didn’t take long for me to go into a deep depression. I had to hide it though, because I was threatened with being put in a psychiatric ward.

[The rest of that is too hard to write right now and is upsetting me, so I hope you don't mind if I skip over things.]

My then fiancé (now husband) had been putting money away to get me a plane ticket, though, so when it became possible my life was in danger, I flew out to Australia to be with him. We got married almost five months ago, and life has been good.

One Day I’ll Fly Away

Thank goodness it’s Friday!

Phew. Another exhausting week has gone by and I am ever thankful for the weekend. I hope you all wish me luck as I wait to hear if I have an interview with the company I put in an application at yesterday.

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend and good things come your way.

On to the feast!

Appetizer - What is the nearest big city to your home?

That would be Melbourne, one of the most beautiful big cities I have ever seen. I live in one of its suburbs.

Soup - On a scale of 1-10 with 10 being highest, how well do you keep secrets?

Definitely a nine or ten, which has proven itself to be be a good thing and a very, very bad thing. But yes, I am generally very, very good at keeping secrets.

Salad - Describe your hair (color, texture, length).

I have dark brown/black hair. It’s pretty much silky and smooth when I take the time to take good care of it. It’s straight but curls and waves very easily. I have a few natural curls, but they straighten out under the weight of the length. It’s layered with the shortest layers coming down to my chin and the longest ones to the middle of my back.

Main Course - What kind of driver are you? Courteous? Aggressive? Slow?

I don’t drive now, but when I did, I was an average driver. I tried to be nice without being slow or obnoxious.

Dessert - When was the last time you had a really bad week?

A couple weeks ago, actually. I was quite ill and it was frustrating because I didn’t know what was going on.

Brought to you by Friday’s Feast

Hello and happy Thursday Thirteen everyone!

This week’s Thursday Thirteen prompts are going to continue on with prompts, questions, first lines, and other inspiration to help you get writing.

If there is another prompt you think would be helpful, be sure to let me know in the comments or by using the ‘contact me’ button under the site description.

1. You put on your winter coat only to find something strange in your pocket…
2. Create your dream house.
3. “Nothing is as it seems.”
4. You hear the beep of your alarm clock. It’s early. You remember you set the clock, but you don’t remember what for.
5. “I just don’t let it bother me anymore.”
6. You are travelling to a different country in a hurry and can only pack one bag. What do you put in it?
7. Think of your favourite poem (or find one you like) and write a story based off it.
8. “Touching isn’t the only way to feel.”
9. Write about a time you came through a struggle and what you learned from the experience.
10. What is your favourite type of weather? Why?
11. Create a ’secret space’ that you wish you could go to relax whenever you wanted.
12. “I know you’re going to think I’m crazy, but…”
13. “Rain. Tears. What’s the difference?”

Check out my other Thursday Thirteens on The Book Stacks and Fiction Scribe

Hello once again everyone!

Welcome to another mid-week random word bank. I rather like random word banks. There is a challenge in them that not only gets your mind working, but you can also end up with a scene that you didn’t know you had it in you to write.

I hope you find these word banks useful. If there is a type of prompt you would prefer to see, please let me know.

Remember, with all the words, you can use any form, any tense of the word. Eg. Laugh can be laugh, laughter, laughs, laughed.

For the first word bank, I don’t want you to write a short story or anything actually. What I want you to do is word association. For every word there, I want you to write the word and then write the first word that comes to your mind after.

For the second word bank, I do want you to write a short story (or something longer if you like) that incorporates this week’s theme. This round goes as usual; just include all of the words in the bank.

For the third word bank, it is something different yet again. I would like you to try your hand at writing a poem incorporating the words provided.

Enjoy!

First Word Bank
Mountain
Persuade
Sleep
Walk
Thought
Company
Welcome
Keep
Imagine
Win

Second Word Bank
Chemical
Poke
Hands
Light
Only
Plain
Everyone
Myself
Close
Talk

Third Word Bank
Task
Blind
Custom
Shout
Still
Spoke
Anticipate
Over
Without
One

Think back…

This week we are talking about memory. Memory can be a powerful, wonderful thing, but it can also be easily lost or tainted with.

People get either short or long term amnesia and lose their memory. There is a study that says about ten percent of our memories aren’t even real. That when we remember back to things, we adjust to make ourselves look a tad bit better and everyone else worse.

Traumatic events can change memory. Something traumatic may be remembered clearly… unless your mind has locked it away somewhere so you don’t have to deal with it or think about it. And yet, while that happens, many of us deal with clear memories that we wish would just go away.

Today (and this week) I would like you to write about what ‘memory’ brings to mind. Do you consider your memories a good thing or a bad thing? If you could erase your memories, would you? Have you ever lost a memory or memories? How did/does that make you feel?

There are a lot of questions with a lot of personal answers when it comes to memory, so take you time with it and explore.

Before you start writing, remember to take a few deep breaths and let your mind clear. You could even, if you have the time and the inclination, try meditating for five or so minutes using the word ‘night’ as a mantra to help get you to focus. Try to shut up all the voices that will interrupt your writing process with to-do lists and doubts about your writing abilities.

Hello everyone and welcome back to Write Anyway.

This week’s Musical Monday is going up a little late because I have been so BUSY lately. Unbelievable busy, which I suppose serves me right for taking a weekend off to celebrate my first wedding anniversary with my husband.

Between road trips and readying job applications, I’m still just as tired as I was last Wednesday, but what can you do? (Yes, I know, sleep.)

Anyway, better late than never, right? We’re back to it this week with a new theme and some lovely songs for you to listen to on this very musical Monday we have today. This week we will be talking about memory, which might just be a bit more interesting than you think.

So sit back, enjoy the music, and start writing…

Memory – Elaine Paige – CATS performance

Ah, we must have this little touch of Broadway when it comes to talking about memory, don’t we?

Memory – Sugarcult

Sugarcult has been one of my favourites since I first discovered back while I was at university. Memory is one of my true favourites from this group (along with “champagne” and “bouncing off the walls”). I hope you like it as much as I do.

You Want to (Make a Memory)

This video is this week’s new discovery. I had never heard the song before going searching on YouTube for some songs with the memory theme. Unfortunately I couldn’t get the original, official video, but I hope you like the song enough to forgive me for putting up a fan made video.